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Anti-whaling activist Peter Bethune has returned to New Zealand after being
deported from Japan where he was convicted of assault and obstruction for
attempting to stop the annual Japanese whale hunt.

Mr Bethune, 45, who climbed aboard a Japanese whaler in the middle of the
Antarctic Ocean in February, was detained aboard the ship and arrested when
it returned to Japan. Earlier this week, a Tokyo court sentenced the former
member of conservation group Sea Shepherd to two years in prison but
suspended the sentence.

Mr Bethune was escorted by immigration officers onto an Air New Zealand flight
bound for